Things are looking up in Paradise . . .

. . . we've decided to give them another chance. It wasn't really our choice though, as they came as part of a package with the cable TV and phone that we've had installed in our house. So, vidagraham@paradise.net.nz is now our permanent email address, so please update your contacts list and send your emails to that address in future (not the UK Freeserve one nor the NZ Xtra one).

Sorry, we've not sent anything for some time, but we've been having far too much fun in our new house! Vida made her deadline of opening all our boxes by the end of Easter Monday (our time, not yours!) We've still got to sort out a few things that we don't need that much, putting them in the garage etc but the house is really taking shape. It's great to have all our stuff again (especially the CDs and Hi-fi). I've become an expert plug changer - it's amazing when you tot up how many plugs one household can have! With all my computer/electronic gadgets and all Vida's kitchen gadgets it's been a bit of a nightmare when you want to use anything.

Veed has just finished updating the website so that you can see how our stuff was manhandled into the house (and removing the endless pictures of our new car - which incidentally some nasty person did a "hit-and-run" on the other day!). There are also some other photos re: leaving the UK and our journey to NZ. There were many more photos that Veed put on there (she got a bit carried away!) but she ended up having to remove them because we only had 10MB of webspace available! We hope you enjoy having a look; http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/vidagrah.

As I said, we've spent most of our time sorting the house out but we have been out a few times. As we are so close to the water we've been wondering about learning to sail or windsurf or something. So, Vida found out about a company that does an introduction to sailing around the harbour. We booked a late afternoon session so that we could see the sunset over Wellington as we sailed back.

Don't believe anyone that tells you Wellington is windy, there was hardly a breath of wind as we motored out of the mooring! Once into the bay though, there was enough for us to put the sail up and turn off the motor. (I say "us", what I really mean is Terry, the skipper with 30 years experience, and his wife, Linda, who were doing all the work!) We headed for Somes Island, where we planned to moor for a bit and take in the views over Wellington. That was where things started to go wrong :-) Unfortunately, the fridge that Terry had put on to keep the milk cold for his cup of tea had drained the battery so we couldn't start the motor, necessary to guide us into the island. No major problem, though, we just sailed around the island instead (skilfully navigated by me at the helm!) Meanwhile, Terry was still trying to make his cup of tea, only to find out that he had run out of gas and there was a problem with the valve so he couldn't attach a new tank :-) By this time we had been on the water for nearly two hours so we started to head back to the marina. However, it was at this point that the wind completely died and we were just drifting along going nowhere, not particularly quickly! Being the macho sea dog that he is, Terry was convinced that despite the flat calm we were actually making progress towards the harbour. After about half an hour of gently rocking to and fro he finally admitted defeat (after a bit of nagging from his wife) and called up the coastguard. He sheepishly explained that we were in the middle of the harbour, becalmed and with a flat battery so we couldn't make it home. We couldn't even put on our navigation lights so he had to flash a torch on the sails to warn other vessels. Oh, I forgot to mention that it had turned dark by now (nice sunset over Wellington) and that we were sharing the harbour with huge container ships!! From Terry's demeanour we gathered that his pride was being greatly dented by this whole experience, so we just kept up the cheery "isn't the sunset beautiful" comments.

Eventually, the coastguard came out to meet us and towed us back to the marina (most exciting part of the trip Veed thought!) Certainly an experience, although a bit disconcerting when the coastguard kept shouting nautical terms at us that neither Vida or I understood (probably calling us bloody idiots for getting stuck in the first place!). All in all it was a fun evening, although not quite what we had expected. We're still toying with the idea of learning to sail, although not with Terry :-)

In case you haven't realised yet it is Graham writing this month's instalment, just to prove that I am still here and not working all the time.

Hope all is well with you,

Love Vida & Graham